War veterans from the region attended the commemoration in Grabovica

(Patria) - War veterans, former members of the Army of RBiH, HVO, HV, VRS, and VJ, laid flowers and paid tribute to the murdered civilians in Grabovica. By their presence in Grabovica, the veterans, as last year, wished to express their sorrow for the murdered civilians, offer support to the victims' families, and call on institutions to make additional efforts to find the remains and punish all those responsible for this war crime.

In the village of Grabovica, located between Jablanica and Mostar, a larger number of civilians were killed on September 8 and 9, 1993. According to the Association of Croatian Victims "Grabovica 93", 33 civilians were killed in those few days of September 1993, and most of the remains of the murdered have not been found to this day. Five members of the Army of RBiH have been convicted for this war crime in the courts of Bosnia and Herzegovina. According to court verdicts, civilians were killed in a particularly brutal manner, including a four-year-old girl Mladenka Zadro, who was killed in her mother's arms. According to the findings of the Hague Tribunal, among the killed was also a member of the Army of RBiH Ivica Čavlović, who opposed the killing of civilians in September 1993.

"What we consider important and what is our goal is to visit such places and point out all the suffering that has occurred. We gather participants of wars from the wider region, and they also feel an obligation and responsibility to visit such places. We believe that by coming to these places and sharing our experiences, we will show that war is a destructive situation and that we learn to distance ourselves from that violence, sending a message to future generations that it must not happen again. Grabovica is another place where a civilizational downfall was witnessed, where a terrible war crime was committed, and we who continue to live in these areas must face it, condemn the crime, call it by its real name, and work to ensure that it never happens again," said Amer Delić, a war veteran of the Army of RBiH and a member of the Center for Nonviolent Action team.

He added that it is important to return to dialogue and confidence-building so that all problems and conflicts in society are resolved peacefully.

"All these places are warnings to us; wherever we go, we encounter terrible human fates, and if we haven't learned from that, what is it all for... War and suffering always have an alternative, it just requires maximum effort. I also feel the need to call on institutions to prosecute all war crimes and to help all families who are searching for their loved ones," said Delić.

Josip Drežnjak, president of the Association "Grabovica '93", also pointed out that 27 years after the crime was committed, families are still searching for the bodies of 17 murdered individuals, and there is no progress in prosecuting those responsible.

"The question of how many bodies we are searching for is painful for us because we have only received two complete bodies; we have a situation where only one bone was found, which we identified and buried, and that's it," said Drežnjak, pointing out that there are clear documents about who participated in the crime, as well as the institutions and individuals who worked on the removal of bodies.

"I view the arrival of war veterans positively. Without truth, looking each other in the eye, if I don't respect someone else's sacrifice, I cannot respect my own sacrifice. And that is my message: we cannot conceal, and punishments must be uniform. If someone committed rape, regardless of who they are, my brother, a Serb, a Bosniak, or a Croat, there must be a uniform punishment, and the one who committed it must be held accountable," said Drežnjak.

The peace organization Center for Nonviolent Action, with offices in Sarajevo and Belgrade, has been organizing visits for a group of war veterans from Croatia, Serbia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina to places of suffering of civilians and soldiers during the last war, as well as to official commemorations organized by local and state authorities and victims' associations, since 2008.

Mirko Zečević Tadić, a former member of the HVO from Brčko, said that he came to Grabovica today with a group of war veterans, as he did last year, with the intention of paying tribute to the victims.

"We came to show that we can take that one step towards a better future, especially for our coming generations. We came to send a message that war should never happen again to anyone. We should not judge individuals who do things that are not good, especially war crimes; such people should be called out to face justice so that we can continue to live normally," said Zečević Tadić.

War veterans from the region, organized by the Center for Nonviolent Action, have so far attended commemorations in Bosnia and Herzegovina in Gornji Vakuf, at Hill 715 near Zavidovići, Stog near Vozuća, Novi Grad/Bosanski Novi, Sanski Most (Hrastova Glavica), Sijekovac near Brod, Laništa near Brčko, Trusina near Konjic, Stupni Do near Vareš, Ahmići in Vitez, Skelani near Srebrenica, Korićanske stijene, Zecovi and Briševo near Prijedor; in Serbia in the Grdelica Gorge near Leskovac, Varvarin near Kruševac, Aleksinac, Prijepolje; and in Croatia in Pakrac, Varivode, and Gošić near Knin.